Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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LEADING NEWS, TRUCKING MARKET CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRY ANALYSIS T he Virginia Tech Transportation Institute will head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's federally required study on the 34-hour restart provi- sions implemented in 2013. A federal appropriations bill signed into law in mid-December put a stay of enforcement on the hours rules pending the study. Congress stipulated that the study form two groups of drivers – one to abide by pre-2013 rules and one to abide by the 2013 provisions. The drivers must be studied for at least five months, and research- ers will compare their schedules, crashes, near-crashes, crash-rele- vant events, operator fatigue and alertness and short-term health. VTTI said it will use electronic logging devices and other tools to gauge driver fatigue levels, and that it also will produce the final study report for FMCSA. The report must be reviewed by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General and must be submitted to Congress. If the agency's study concludes the 2013 rules are better for safety and operator alertness, they will go back into effect. FMCSA initially announced in the middle of January it was look- ing for driver participants for the study. VTTI hopes to recruit about 250 drivers from a variety of fleet sizes, operations and segments. – James Jaillet H ighway funding legislation saw a flurry of activity beginning in late January. First, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a five- year $1 trillion transportation infrastructure bill. Meanwhile, some House Democrats filed a six-year funding bill dubbed Transportation 2.0, while some House Republicans considered another proposal. Then President Obama proposed his own six-year $578 billion package, while Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) unveiled a self-billed bipartisan plan. The American Trucking Associations also sent a letter to Congress pushing for a fuel tax increase to fund U.S. high- ways. The Senate's Environmental and Public Works committee held a hearing on the mat- ter, in which U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx gave a passionate plea for a long-term trans- portation funding bill. Foxx reiterated his concerns in mid-February during a second visit to Capitol Hill. Congress must pass a highway funding measure before May 31, or the Highway Trust Fund will run dry. At the Senate hearing, Foxx touted the White House's Grow America Act he and Obama submitted to Congress last year. "To hell with politics," Foxx said. "In order for the system to be good for the American people, we must do something dramatic." He also chastised Congress for its reluc- tance to pass anything longer than a two- year bill in the last 10 years, and only twice has it done that: The time between the bills has been supplemented with short-term extensions – sometimes as short as three months – of already-existing highway fund- ing laws. "What we received in response (to the Grow America Act) was a 10-month extension with flat funding, which while averting a catastro- phe falls short of meeting the coun- try's needs," Foxx said. "As a former mayor, I can tell you what these short- term measures are doing to Americans – lit- erally killing their will to build." During Foxx's second visit to Capitol Hill, he told members of the House's Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that if Congress does not act, freight corridors will become more jammed, roads and bridges already deficient will present dangers to highway users, and states will con- tinue to put more projects on hold due to funding uncertainty. Scan the QR code with your smartphone or visit ccjdigital.com/news/subscribe-to-news- letters to sign up for the CCJ Daily Report, a daily e-mail newsletter filled with news, analy- sis, blogs and market condition articles. COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | MARCH 2015 9 FMCSA seeks driver participants for HOS study Highway funding debate, activity ramps up Continued on page 12 U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx scolded Congress for its reluctance to pass anything longer than a two-year highway bill in the last 10 years.